Eurostat, the European Union's statistical arm, is very satisfied with the high level and quality of statistics being provided by Malta's National Statistics Office, according to Philippe Bautier, a spokesman for Eurostat.

Following reports last week that Greece had revised its statistics for its budget deficit over the last three years, The Times sought the Commission's opinion on the standard of statistics arriving from Malta.

Mr Bautier said that Eurostat was "very satisfied with the level of independence, integrity and accountability of the Maltese statistical office".

"We are especially impressed with the transparency of the statistical information sent to us by the Maltese as regards the EDP (early deficit procedure) tables. These were completed by several annexes, all items were properly explained and commented and, in addition, they also sent explanatory notes as complement." The positive comments were welcomed by the Maltese head of the National Statistics Office, Alfred Camilleri, who said he was obviously very satisfied. "However, this does not mean that we have reached our ultimate objectives. There are still several challenges ahead of us."

Mr Camilleri said that in the coming weeks the office would continue to improve on the quality and output of its work. He said the NSO needed to improve the level of cooperation with its data providers at the same time that user needs remained of utmost importance.

Following last week's revelation over the Greek statistics, Joachin Almunia, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, called the Greek revisions very worrying. He said the Commission insisted that the compilation and reporting of budgetary statistics was of vital importance to the credibility of budgetary surveillance.

Under the new EU constitution, which still has to be ratified, statistics will remain a national responsibility. Statistics are one of the most important components over which the EU decides on the amount of funding every member state is entitled to from the EU and how much it should contribute to the EU coffers.